Charles de Lint's Someplace to be Flying

I recently completed my second Charles de Lint novel: Someplace To Be Flying -- first published in 1998. I'm now going to have to find and read every de Lint novel. The man is an amazing writer. De Lint is a contemporary fantasy author, with his stories set in modern, urban settings. Someplace To Be Flying is set in his fictional city of Newford, and it's like every major North American city -- expect, around the corner, in shadows, the places hidden in plain site, magic is happening. In Someplace To Be Flying, that magic comes in the form of the First People -- the animal people -- those that were here before the world began; that saw the coming the humans and the changes they brought in the world.

De Lint pays homage to Native American mythology in Someplace To Be Flying. He deftly crafts his prose around mythology that most of us will not be familiar with, but will seem more real than the overused Judeo-Christian mythology. The novel is quite an introspection, concerning itself with people, their relationships, how we see ourselves in the world -- and what it means to be finitely human. It caused me to pause a number of times to reflect.

But the evil people do, that's their responsibility. The burden they have to carry. Sure, when we see 'em starting on causing some hurt, we've got to try and stop 'em, but mostly what the rest of us should be concerning ourselves with is doing right by others. Every time you do a good turn, you shine the light a little farther into the dark. And the thing is, even when we're gone, that light's going to keep shining on, pushing the shadows back.

...

"I think the other part of what he was saying," I tell her, "is that everything has an existence separate from ourselves. People, animals, trees, art ... everything. So when you're interacting with something -- it doesn't matter what it is -- you shouldn't be concentrating on how clearly you see yourself in it. The trick is to recognize the worth of a thing for it's own sake instead of recognizing its worth to you."

For a good review, check out Neil Walsh's post on SF Site.